2,000-3000 years ago, Quaternary Period: oceans roughly at present
level. Peninsulas, bays, and islands of coastal Maine have their present
shape. Matinicus, Criehaven, Matinicus Rock, Wooden Ball, No Man's
Land, Two Bush, Seal, and Ten Pound Islands probably looked much as they
do now, only without the multicolored bits tangled up in the
bladderwrack.

Mid-1600s: Many islands off the coast of Maine, likely including
Matinicus, used as fishing and whaling "stations" by Europeans.

1702: Cotton Mather, one of Massachusetts Bay Colony's chief Puritans,
tells the story of another Massachusetts minister who sets out to
convert the woodsmen and fishermen of the Wild, Wild East (that would be
Maine) in the late 1600s. He preached to a few of the curious among
these hard-bitten men that they should attend to righteousness and piety
so that they would not "contradict the main end of planting this
wilderness." A fisherman was reported to have yelled out in the middle
of the sermon, "Sir, you are mistaken. Our main end is to catch fish!"

1751: Widely reputed to be the first permanent white settler on
Matinicus Island, Ebenezer Hall ignores the needs of the Tarratine
Penobscots who had harvested the resources of the island seasonally for
generations. He persists in burning the island, which ruins the Indians'
chances of gathering eggs and other edibles. Hall also report- edly
shot two Indians (an example of how people from away often ingratiate
themselves so well with the native population). The Penobscots dispatch a
formal letter of protest to the Governor Spencer Phipps of
Massachusetts requesting that his honor do something about this white
hooligan who is vandalizing the place. The governor, of course, being a
man of dignity and importance, was having no truck with "wild" Indians.
Realizing that attempting to go through the proper channels yields no
results, the Penobscots burn down Hall's house and, as Clayton Young
used to tell it, "put an arrow through him." Some say he was scalped.
(In any event, this episode proves what islanders have always known,
which is that if you want something done you'd better do it yourself.)

Hall's son, also named Ebenezer Hall, was off working on a fishing boat
(see above) and thus survived the massacre. He returned, married Susanna
Young, and there are Hall descendents on Matinicus to this day.

1840: The Plantation of Matinicus was incorporated. A "plantation" is a
bizarre form of Maine sub-government somewhere between that of a town
and an unorganized territory, handling some customary municipal
functions, but not all of them. The neighboring island, called Ragged
Island (polite for Racketash or Ragged-Arse) on some of the more
low-class maps but known to all as Criehaven, was part of the
plantation. Criehaven seceded in 1896, set up its own school and post
office, and functioned as an independent governmental entity until they
decided it was more trouble than it was worth and renounced their
organization in 1925, when Criehaven Township became an unorganized
territory. Matinicus Isle Plantation has main- tained its legal status
as a disorganized territory.

1842: A lodge of the "Washingtonian Temperance Society" was formed on
Matinicus Island. It has been suggested by the present-day town
historian that the wider public might take some interest in the
existence of this august association. As documented in Matinicus Isle,
Its Story and Its People, by Charles A. E. Long (1926), the citizens of
the island apparently were then, as now, occasionally influenced by peer
pressure and the informal leadership of a particular sort of tribal
chieftain.

A local wag penned the following verse:

Cold water is our constant drink.
We used to have good wine,
"˜Til Adams on Matinicus came
And made the damned fools sign.
The people on Matinicus
Thought they couldn't sign at all,
Until they got Squire Young's consent;
And likewise, Freeman Hall.

Membership peaked at 139, from which height it began its rapid plummet,
until meetings were canceled due to total lack of attendance. Sales of
vanilla extract in the 1840s reached a previously unknown high.

1856 and/or 1857: At Matinicus Rock (a lighthouse on a big ledge five
miles south of Matinicus Island) seventeen-year-old Abbie Burgess, the
daughter of lightkeeper Captain Samuel Burgess, spends an unbelievably
long time running things herself in the absence of her father. He has
gone to town for lamp oil, medicine, mail, groceries, chicken feed, his
salary, and, some say, more than a few rounds. He is said to have been
away for four weeks. Meanwhile, Abbie maintains the oil lamp light
station despite terrible storms, nurses an ailing mother, tends younger
sisters, and is down to eating almost nothing but eggs by time Captain
Burgess returns. The heroic Abbie later marries another lighthouse
keeper and continues with her position. She is buried in Spruce Head,
Maine, with a lighthouse on her grave. "Keep the lights burning, Abbie"
is our best little motivational speech.

1903: The red dahlia plants that become an icon of the island are first
brought to the island by Aunt Marian as a gift to young Julia Young.
Dahlia tubers propagated from the originals are still planted every year
by many Matinicus homeowners.

1906: The Matinicus church is built. I guess it didn't take; we are
still mostly heathens. Records indicate over 250 year-round residents on
the island at the time. In a June 1906 clipping from the Rockland
Courier-Gazette, we read the following: "In spite of the fog and rain
the steamer W. G. Butman took nearly sixty persons-ministers, church
members, and friends-to Matinicus Wednesday to assist in the dedication
of the first church building which the beautiful island has ever
enjoyed". The visitors soon found themselves in the attractive
meetinghouse". In the vestry were tables loaded with food in quantity
enough for a small army and in quality enough to satisfy an epicure."
Islanders' opinion about what a church is for has not changed.

1931 or thereabouts: Edna St Vincent Millay writes Sonnet XXXVI, the
"Matinicus Sonnet." The words of this poem are painted on the walls, up
near the ceiling around the periphery of one of the island kitchens.
Dahlias are, of course, mentioned.

1940s: The population of Criehaven was severely depleted around the time
of World War II, when so many men left to serve in the armed forces
that the fishing community almost disappeared and the community could
not afford to hire a schoolteacher. This resulted in most of the women
and children leaving, which resulted in the store packing up, which
resulted in the loss of the post office. At this time, Criehaven has no
year-round residents and no public services. The majority of the island
is owned by one man, a finite number of lobstermen are permitted, and
the island is startlingly clean due largely to the lack of junk mail.

1950s: "Lobster War" at Matinicus makes the papers. Photographs of armed
fishermen solidify reputation for lawlessness and anarchy. Meanwhile,
on the island, Aunt Marian and the other old ladies keep everybody in
line.

Arthur Harjula first flies passengers to and from Matinicus in his airplane.

1960s: Technological boom time. Telephone service comes to Matinicus;
until now, one U.S. Coast Guard cable came from the mainland, crossed
over Matinicus Island where it was tapped for an emergency phone (two
sets, at the post office and at Aunt Marian's, but same line), and
continued to the lighthouse at Matinicus Rock, five miles farther out.
Microwave telephone allowed residential customers, although five-digit
numbers and party lines remained common until roughly 1990. Island
customers, when calling off-island (which was long distance), hear an
operator cut in and ask, "What number are you calling from." This offers
a high degree of temptation, and sometimes people discover calls on
their bills that make very little sense. Once, Suzanne Rankin asked me
if I recognized a certain number that appeared mysteriously on her bill
when she wasn't even on the island that week; I repeated the number out
loud, and behind me, another neighbor called out, "That's the Trade
Winds Bar in Rockland!"

First iteration of the power company forms on the island. Before this,
everybody had his or her own generator. Matinicus Light and Power goes
through a series of different hand-me-down engines before new engines,
sized for efficiency, are purchased in 1982. The power company came
about in part by the desire for telephone service. These days, we have
"Keep the lights burning, Paul Murray."

Schoolteacher Tadgh Hanna goes on strike, with a picket sign, and gets
in the papers. The old one-room schoolhouse, supposedly built with
lumber salvaged from a shipwreck, is replaced by the architecturally
uninspired "new school" next door. Hanna, evidently a bit more of a free
spirit than some felt necessary, is replaced by a teacher who had just
got out of the Marine Corps. The new schoolhouse does have indoor
plumbing; some said that's what Hanna was on strike about.

1987: I arrive on Matinicus as the schoolteacher, with a bicycle, a
black iron frying pan, an ice cream maker, a Saturday night special, an
adjustable wrench, a trapper's license, and a subscription to the
National Law Journal. I have eight students most of the year, almost one
of each grade. They teach me a lot

2001: No children registered for school. No teacher hired. The Matinicus
community, after much ruminating, decides to keep the school open
anyway. That proved the right decision, and the next year students began
to come back. Let that be a lesson to you.

2006: The Matinicus Congregational Church gets running water to the
kitchen after a century of doing without because the year before twelve
island women, of a respectable age, peeled down behind the rose bushes
for a worthy cause. The calendar sold out quickly, and only a few
helpful souls wrote to inform us that we were going to hell.

2008: Newly renovated post office burns down in accidental fire. It
takes over a year to get a physical post office up and running again.
Hey, we're talking about the postal service. Matinicus postal customers
get RFD mail delivery for the first time ever.

2007 and 2009 and 2010: Matinicus in the news again for the wrong
reasons, but this time people have computers, text messaging, Twitter,
cable television, and the "anonymous on-line comments section" after
news articles. Our outlaw reputation is instantly cemented worldwide and
on Mars. Tourists call up on the phone and ask if it's true that
bullets are flying everywhere. Teenagers write essays for school about
this stuff and nobody believes them. Applicants for the teaching
position are discouraged by their in-laws. We hope Harrison Ford will
agree to star in it when they make the movie.

++++++++++++++++
Eva Murray first came to Matinicus as the teacher in the island's one-room school. She is a freelance writer, an EMT, runs a small seasonal bakery from her home during the summer, is married to the island's electrician and has raised two children on Matinicus.